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pookie2
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- Posts: 632
So sorry, Sabbi. I'll not try to give advice, just tell you what happened to us.
My grandmother died in June. The boys were 5, 3 and 1. She was very elderly (103), but a huge part of our extended family. I'd been telling the boys for a long time that she was really, really old and that when people get really, really old they kind of run out of energy (talk of batteries came up) & that that was ok. They wanted to know what happened next & I told them about funerals & souls going to heaven & bodies going into the ground.
I told them that Granny would be happy in heaven with Holy God & that she would be able to see them & hear them if they talked to her or told her about a problem & she would try and help them, but they wouldn't be able to hear her voice anymore.
I told them that if they were sad & told her, she would try and cheer them up & they should look & listen carefully in case she was trying to show them pretty flowers or hear a bird singing because that was how they would know she had heard them.
They came to the funeral. DS1 came to the funeral home (the other two were asleep in th car) & kissed her goodbye & told her he loved her & then asked the funeral director how he had got her into the box!
I had a few emotional moments - even though the idea of her passing was not new to me - & they noticed every time my voice wobbled or eyes filled with tears & tried to comfort me. The three year old asked was I 'talking funny' because I was lonely & the five year old told me not to be sad because heaven was a lovely place & that Old Granny was back with grandad and her mummy and daddy.
In the cemetary, they nearly gave me several coronaries - they hung off a neighbouring gravestone, fascinated by the mechanics of getting the coffin into the ground & asking questions by the dozen.
At one point on the journey from Dundalk to Mayo, DS1 explained to DS2 (in a very matter of fact fashion) that Old Granny's batteries had run out and that her soul was gone to heaven & we'd put her body in a box in the graveyard and then have a party & ice-cream.
I was lucky, I suppose, that their first experience of death was not a shock. Gran's death was not unexpected & the funeral was a real celebration of a full life. It was the end of an era, but her funeral was not traumatic. (DS1 had already seem her on oxygen etc after a heart attack)
There is nothing wrong with children seeing grief & knowing about death in my view, as long as we can put it in a context.
Don't know if any of this any use to you, Sabbi. Sorry again at your loss
xxx
